FLORIDA - Bad news for Florida businesses....They're about to see their taxes skyrocket.... as the state tries to replenish its Unemployment Compensation Fund.

Greg Neumann originally reported about a potential increase in the tax on Monday... He joins us now with more details.

The state's high unemployment rate caused the Unemployment Compensation Fund to go broke in August... and Florida's been borrowing money from the federal government ever since.... just to keep paying unemployment claims.

But, beginning in January.... Florida employers will start footing the bill in a big way.
They will see a 12 fold increase in the amount they pay in unemployment compensation tax.

Right now, the minimum tax businesses pay is just eight dollars and forty cents per employee.... but next year.... that minimum tax will jump to over 100 hundred dollars per employee.

And instead of paying on the first seven thousand dollars an employee earns like they did this year... Employers will have to pay on the first 85 hundred next year.

Employers we spoke to on Monday told us that even a four-fold increase would hurt them.

We're gonna go back to those employers today to get their reaction to this much larger than expected tax hike.

I'll have that and more on this story beginning on channel three news first at four.

Unemployment Taxes